But let’s get the facts out of the way first.  The EP is out on November 15 and there are 5 tracks: “Lost Without You”, “Change the Way”, “How Hard We Try”, “Friends” and “Ba Ba Da”.  You can get all the official material on Ellie on her Facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/ellielawsonmusic including samples from the EP and a free download.  Just out of interest, why do we have to “like” something before we get the chance to hear it?

So why is it so frustrating?  Well, the first song “Lost Without You” is a good example.   From the outset, it’s obvious that Ellie has a strong and very distinctive voice; you could justifiably compare it to early Joni Mitchell.  The trite subject matter of the song (escaping from the debauchery of the celebrity lifestyle) is such a cliché that the power of such a great voice is almost completely wasted.

The cutesy arrangements on “Change the Way” and “Ba Ba Da” don’t help.  Ukulele and whistling might have seemed like a great way of sounding distinctive, but the finished product just sounds affected and twee and certainly not the best way of showcasing a strong and original voice.  But that’s only 3 of the 5 songs on the EP.

“How Hard We Try” is built on a trip-hop feel with a nice acoustic guitar figure to push the song along and “Friends” is a much more traditional arrangement with acoustic guitar and strings.  It’s a personal opinion, but these songs work much better because they use a more traditional framework.  These 2 songs are enough to show that Ellie Lawson is a genuine talent and she should be a success in her own right in the long term.
This EP has a feel of the clever kid at school who wants to show how varied their influences are and how many different styles they can work in instead of a showcase for a great vocal talent and that’s what’s frustrating.  With a different set of songs and less quirky arrangements, this could have been a great introduction to an artist with a truly original and memorable voice.  I’m sure that there are better things to come.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U750IlDW9I.  The difficult choice is whether to talk about the music or the manifesto; ok, manifesto it is.

The basic premise is that digital technology is making music flaccid and predictable and I’ve got a lot of sympathy with that; before sampling, you would have asked a musician to play something which fitted in with the piece you were creating but now you just sample something, timestretch it and slot it in.  So far, so good.  The Metamono response to this situation is to impose strict limitations on the way their music is created and use these restrictions to ensure that creativity becomes more important than technology; again, I have a bit less sympathy with that position but then we get to the details of the creative restrictions.The first restriction is a bit of a strange one; Metamono will not use microphones.  It’s strange because microphones aren’t digital technology and they predate the analogue synthesisers which Metamono feature by about a century.  Even the industry standard Shure SM58 was launched in1966, about 5 years before analogue synthesisers appeared on the commercial market.  Maybe I’m being a bit pedantic, but why is not using microphones a big deal, particularly when there aren’t any vocals?  And how did they record the voiceover for the manifesto?

On to the rest of the manifesto; no digital sound sources or sampling, no mechanical sound generation or digital processing, no overdubs or remixes and digital processing and editing will only be used when no alternative is available.  Composing and mixing will be done simultaneously and only previously-used or home-made instruments will be used.  There’s also a reference to not being afraid of mono.  Ok, that’s enough of the manifesto for now.  The first full-scale Metamono release, the “Tape EP”, is out on October 31 as a 10-inch single and download, so what’s it like?

There are 4 tracks; XeF4, H2NS, Metahaze and Emptygamezone and they all sound a bit like you would expect them to sound if you had read the manifesto.  There are strong suggestions of Kraftwerk and Sheffield in the ‘80s.  It’s very atmospheric; H2NS sounds like wandering through a disused warehouse in the dark with water leaking through the roof, while Metahaze has the feel of a car journey through a busy city at night with a dub reggae bass in the background.  The EP as a whole sounds something like a little-known 1990 Rough Trade EP “Journey Through the New York Underground” by Metro with a few more unvarnished edges and corners; it’s certainly worth a listen if you want something a bit out of the ordinary.

Which brings us back to the manifesto again.  I’m always a bit uncomfortable with any artistic work which is made in accordance with a strict set of rules, particularly when the manifesto isn’t particularly consistent.  In this case, the use of some digital technology and the refusal to use perfectly acceptable analogue technology seems a bit perverse.  Popular music has evolved by adapting new technologies such as multi-track recording, amplification and sampling and finding creative uses for them.  It’s inevitable that these technologies will have a honeymoon period where they are over-used (Autotune for example) before becoming just another tool in the musician or producer’s box.  At a time when digital technology is now producing results which are comparable to analogue, it seems a strange to restrict your music making to purely analogue techniques.

The song opens with a 4-bar mid-tempo guitar intro before a thunderous volley of floor toms and bass drum batters the way into the body of the song.  It’s all powered along by a monster of a guitar riff and packs everything you expect from a great metal record into three and a half minutes.

The band have the classic New Wave of British Heavy Metal line-up of bass, drums, two guitars and singer and they’re descended from that movement in one other way; the singer is Austin Dickinson, son of Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson.  It’s all there; the playing is tight, technically brilliant and very aggressive with the two guitars combining effectively in various ways including the harmony playing that Thin Lizzy fans will remember, the rhythm section is a metronomic powerhouse and Austin Dickinson has a great rock voice.

“This Day is Mine” crams in almost every metal trick you can imagine including some great shredding, breakdowns, great vocal harmonies and a big crash ending.  The band is already being tipped as the next big thing in the metal magazines and, on the evidence of this single, it’s easy to see why.  They’re currently on tour in support of their debut album “City of Vultures” (released on September 5).  If you’re at all interested in British rock, they’re well worth seeing.  Find out more at:

www.risetoremain.com .

Whether you love metal or loathe it, you certainly can’t ignore it.  Out on September 19.